Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) are typically used in warehousing and manufacturing environments to automatically perform various material handling functions with no or little human involvement. AGVs are commonly used to improve safety and reduce overhead by limiting the number of employees required to complete specific material handling tasks. While there have been many benefits by using these types of systems, there are still issues with the AGV's inability to be flexible and efficiently handle multiple different stock keeping units (SKUs) in high throughput situations. Under these and other types of conditions, human personnel are still a better and more cost efficient option as compared to AGV systems. For example, in order fulfilment and warehousing, “Eaches” orders are expected to grow in total cases over the next few years and SKU counts are also expected to grow. This growth is driven by eCommerce orders, retail demand, and the desire to introduce new product SKUs more efficiently into the market place. The current “Fast Velocity Eaches” and “Medium Velocity Eaches” processes utilize manual “Pick to Light” techniques and are fairly inefficient in pick rates and carton material flow. In general there are too many people, employee turnover is high because it is a repetitive monotonous job, and pick accuracy and rates vary.
Thus, there is a need for improvement in this field.